PARIS (AFP) — Pirates have freed the 30 crew from a French luxury sailing ship which was seized off Somalia one week ago and had been tailed by the French Navy, officials said Friday.
The hostages, including 22 French crew aboard Le Ponant, were freed "without incident," President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement.
A French military source said the 30 were freed after negotiations and there was no armed intervention. There was no information over whether a ransom was paid.
The 32-cabin vessel was hijacked on April 4. It had been anchored off Puntland, a breakaway northern region of Somalia, during the negotiations.
Owned by French charter company CMA-CGM, the three-mast sailboat was en route to the Mediterranean from the Seychelles when pirates boarded the vessel last Friday.
CMA-CGM spokesman Jean-Louis Gaudaire said Le Ponant was expected in Djibouti next Tuesday "without or without the crew. We do not yet have details on they way in which they will be repatriated."
"It takes several days of sailing from where they are to reach Djibouti and the boat goes a lot slower than the navy. It is possible the skipper will stay on board with navy crew to bring the boat back under escort," he said.
"The president of the republic announces the release of the 30 hostages, including 22 French nationals, of the Le Ponant sailboat, off the Somali coast," said the statement from the Elysee presidential palace.
Sarkozy expressed "his deep gratitude to the French army forces and all the state services who helped bring about a quick end, without incident, to this hostage taking."
Details of the release were expected to be made public following a meeting between Sarkozy and the hostages' families later Friday. A French official, who asked not to be named, said: "Not a shot was fired. It all took place calmly."
Valerie Garrec, whose 20-year-old son Thibaut was among the hostages, praised Sarkozy's handling of the crisis afer receiving a call from the president's office announcing the good news around midday.
"They said they were free and safe and we don't know anything more. Now I am waiting to speak to my son by phone," Garrec told AFP from her home in Brittany, in northern France.
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said preparations were being made to return the freed hostages to France as soon as possible.
Kouchner announced earlier this week that France had entered into contact with the hostage takers as the Ponant anchored off the coast of Puntland, near the village of Garaad.
The crew also included six Filipinos and one Ukrainian.
Experts said the hostages were being held by the "Somali Marines," which they described as the most powerful gang of pirates operating off the coast of Somalia.
France sent a helicopter and navy vessels to the area, but Prime Minister Francois Fillon said authorities would not resort to force to win the hostages' release.
A French naval warship maintained close surveillance with troops from the French gendarmerie's elite counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit stationed in nearby Djibouti.
Kouchner on Friday urged the international community to take action to fight piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast and said talks were underway at the United Nations on the issue.
The foreign minister asked the UN Security Council to set up a surveillance system for navigation off the coast of Somalia, saying that some 230 to 300 boats were attacked in that area last year.
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